Ed Lacy - The Big Fix

     Fifteen minutes later the bartender came over. “Ready now?”

     “Gin—straight.”

     Tommy was on his second gin belt a half hour later when Big Burt entered. He sported a worn blue beret and was well over six feet and fleshy. He wore a blue work shirt, dirty white bow tie, a once-white sweater, and a baggy heavy overcoat. These were his work clothes. He knew it was poor advertising to dress in his usual flashy manner around the markets. His large-featured face was loose, and almost over-handsome. Tommy took in the soggy chins, the padded shoulders, the lardy backside, decided Burt was big, but that was all. Not that it mattered. He wasn't here to fight. And while he believed the old fight maxim—a good big man can whip a good little man—he also was aware of the difference between a pug and the ordinary man.

     Burt stopped to talk to a man at a table, and pocket a half a dollar. Burt took out a deck of cards. He was using hearts for the first figure, spades for the second, and clubs for the last number. On the joker he wrote the man's initials and one-half. Then he penciled the initials on one comer of the five of hearts, in the same comer of the two of spades, and on the comer of the nine of clubs. He had the man down for fifty cents on 529. Thus if Burt was ever picked up —and now and then he had to stand still for a routine arrest (but 'somehow' never for an indictment or conviction) Burt didn't have any slips or evidence on him. There wasn't any law against carrying a deck of cards, even marked ones.

     The barkeep called Burt over and whispered. Burt approached Tommy, asked, “You looking for me? You're new around here.”

     “Aha.” Tommy counted the overcoat buttons. Between the third and fourth buttons, if it came to that, as he thought, “Main thing is to control myself, get this settled. He said, “I came to tell you that May, the waitress at the diner, squared the play with Shorty. It's all settled.”

     Burt grinned. He was certain Tommy wasn't a dick. His face shouted pug, but a small one. “Who settled it?”

     “I did. I'm making arrangements to pay Shorty off. May's sorry, and don't want no more trouble with you. Okay?”

     “Who are you?”

     “What's the diff? The beef is squared.”

     “I like to know whom I'm talking to.” Burt had a vague fear the syndicate brass might be behind Tommy.

     “I'm May's husband. Now you know. Everything okay?”

     “Tell your bitch if she ever shows her ugly puss around here, I'll...”

     Tommy's right hand moved. Burt's raced for his coat pocket. But Tommy was merely feinting with his right; a perfect left hook landed in the middle of Big Burt's groin, then a short hard right thudded between the third and fourth buttons into the solar plexus. It was so fast Burt still had his hand at the top of his pocket. As he started to sink to the floor, big face tight with pain, another left slashed Burt's eye, a right closed the other eye, a left broke his nose.

     All of this took less than a brace of seconds. Tommy glanced around to see what the others were going to do, watched the bartender out of the corner of his eye. Everybody seemed scared, motionless.

     Tommy shook his fingers, felt of his knuckles. Burt's head was resting on the bar railing, then hit the floor with a dull sound. His face was red with blood, right hand still in his pocket, left hand pressing between his legs. Tommy said, “You big bastard, you didn't have to slap her around. She didn't know what she was doing. She would have made the money good.” He walked out of the bar. No one made a move to stop him. In fact, when he had left the bar the first sound was a produce man muttering, “Geez, did you see that little redheaded guy go? Wow!”

     Outside, Tommy walked fast, turning comers and listening for any following footsteps until he found himself out of the market area, in a silent street of dark office buildings. Tommy trotted over to a bus and thirty-five minutes later he was in his hotel room, undressing. It was after three. His knuckles were swollen but not broken. The skin wasn't even cut. He got into bed and fell off to sleep at once. Tommy felt very good.

ARNO

     Arno was a light sleeper. He had returned to the hotel at one o'clock after reading the morning papers while eating sweet Greek pastry in an upstairs coffee shop he'd found. He had noticed Tommy's key was still at the desk.

     Now, he awoke as Tommy closed the door across the hall. For a moment Arno listened to the heavy breathing of Jake in the bed next to his. Then he sat up, lit a match, looked at his fancy wrist watch. (Worth a hundred dollars in any pawn shop.) He smiled at the time, blew out the match, and turned until reaching a comfortable sleeping position. He made a mental note to get Jake on the road early, then dozed off.

     Arno was also feeling quite contented.

TOMMY

     Jake awoke him at seven. Jake was dressed in a woolen cap, sweat shirt, old pants, a windbreaker, and heavy shoes. He was half asleep himself, Arno having forced him out of bed a few minutes before. It was almost with a feeling of revenge that he shook Tommy, asked, “What you say, Pops, going to hit the road? Or are you too sleepy?”

     “Never too sleepy to strengthen my legs,” Tommy said, in a daze, not wanting to show how tired he really felt.

     They walked over to the park, then jogged and ran three miles, stopping now and then to shadow-box. It was the first time in a week Tommy had seen Jake on the road and when they stopped to spar for a second, both of them sweating freely, he asked, “Arno have a fight set for you?”

     “Who knows? I always keep in shape.”

     “Did you tell me you used to fight in New York, that you'd worked out with Basilio and Jordan at the old Still-man's gym?”

     “I never told you nothing, Pops,” Jake said coldly. “Let's run.

     Tommy said sure and shut up. They were the only pugs out but he could remember when one would see a dozen or more boxers, all guys he knew, running in the park any morning. Or the “old days” when Tommy might take a few close pals up to a training camp, how excited they'd be to hit the road with him, and puffed out after the first quarter of a mile. Tommy even paid their way, had them take off from their jobs. When he once mentioned this to Alvin while gassing over a beer, Hammer had told him, “I'll never understand you pugs; you make a hard dollar but you're always carrying around an entourage of freeloaders, throwing away your money. Why did you do it?”

     “You see, it gets lonely in a training camp,” Tommy had tried to explain. “Bobby was much older than me, and my trainer was always telling me what John L. Sullivan had told him. I needed some guys my own age around... talk to, make jokes. No, that wasn't money thrown away.”

     Back in the hotel, after they showered, Arno joined them for breakfast, face carefully shaved and powdered, his nose no longer looking like a road-map. He told Tommy, “Guess you came in after I did last night.”

     “Running a bed-check on me?”

     Arno smiled, his lips almost feminine against the aftershave powder on his face. “I should say not. You know far more about conditioning than I ever will. Any time you feel the need for relaxation, go ahead. If you want a woman, let me know. I'll fix you up.”

     Tommy rubbed the wedding ring on his finger. “I have a wife. I saw her last night.”

     Jake actually leered as he asked, “Why didn't you tell me? You must have been real pooped this morning.”

     “Nothing to tell. I'm feeling fine. Plan to start working out at the big gym today, try to get myself a fight.”

     Arno nodded as he spread mint jam on a well buttered piece of toast, then sprinkled dried ginger over it. Watching the ginger sink into the jam, he said, “Tommy, just keep in mind there's no rash. I want you to be ready. By the by, in case anybody around the gym asks, remember, I'm not your manager. Since the fight mob hangs out there, best to also keep my being your... uh... patron quiet. Understand?”

     “Sure.”

     “Until fake is established we have to keep our deal top secret. Don't even tell your wife. Did you tell her?”

     “No. I'm not much of a talker,” Tommy said, ordering more eggs. “May, that's the wife, doesn't ask about boxing. She don't exactly like the game. We been apart for the last couple years. You know how it is.” He turned to Jake. “You married?”

     “Me?” Jake grunted with astonishment. “Naw.”

     Tommy said, “A leatherpusher shouldn't get hitched until he's done with the ring. Do you have a family, Arno?”

     “Not that I recognize. Guess I've knocked up my share of gals. I was married twice. Didn't work out; I was too busy making money. There's too many pretty things floating around for a man to settle down with one of them.”

     “May is all the woman I want,” Tommy said, remembering again the heat of her kiss last night, and then the money he had to raise for Shorty. Watching Arno eating, his dainty enjoyment of the food, the fat face above the expensive clothes, Tommy was tempted to ask for a loan of five hundred and forty dollars. But he thought, Might sour Arno on me. I'd seem like a pig. Be different if I'd had a few fights for him, had paid him back a little of what he's laid out.

     After breakfast Tommy bought a paper and went to his room to rest and listen to the radio. Arno slipped in and held up a bottle of Irish whiskey. “Thought you'd appreciate this, Tommy. I lucked up on it last night. Ten years old and a hundred proof. Be wasted on a kid like Jake. Figured you might want to take a taste now and then, to relax.”

     Tommy thanked him and when Arno left Tommy told himself, “Guy is so good to me I can't ask him for a big bite like five hundred and forty dollars. Use a sip of this now.” He opened the bottle, took a whiff of the rich aroma and stopped the bottle half way to his lips, remembering what Walt had said about being poisoned. Then he said, “Damn, those clowns are spoiling everything for me—even a shot.” He took a small sip of the smoky-tasting liquid, then a good belt and put the bottle away in his dresser.

     The whiskey relaxed him and he stretched out on the bed, thought, The hell with worrying about Arno, more important I get something working on raising Shorty's dough, get May done with the numbers guys.

     A horse called Give Me A Break was running in the third race at seven to one. Being strictly a hunch player, Tommy made a note of that. He wished he had asked May what was the number that hung her up. With my Irish luck, it might save us. Little chance of the same number coming out twice in a week, but never tell. Put three bucks on it and we'll have dough to spare. Wonder if there's a phone where she is? But maybe I shouldn't bother her, or those people. Certainly nice the way they agreed to take May in. She'll have it good there, being around kids. And it would upset May if I mentioned the numbers. First time I hit a decent payday, I'll buy a flock of toys for those kids. I...

     On the hotel radio an announcer said, “Today is your last chance to enter our big soup contest. Nothing to buy, no jingles to write. Merely send your name and address on the back of a postal card to the Betsy Soup Company, care of this station. All entries must be postmarked by midnight. Remember, first prize is one thousand dollars, with five second prizes of a new home freezer, and hundreds of other prizes. Hurry and send your entry in, you may be the lucky winner.”

     Tommy made a note of that, figured even if he won a freezer it could be sold for a few hundred. Then he dozed off. He awoke before noon and headed for the gym. At the desk he bought a card and mailed it to the soup company. Stopping at the Between Rounds, he put five bucks on the horse, to win, and as an afterthought, a dollar on 559. They owed Shorty five hundred and forty dollars and yesterday was the nineteenth day of the month. He felt relieved, now that he had a “few things going” for himself. With the luck of the Irish, he thought, I might be able to pay off this Shorty by the end of the week, or by tonight. I wonder how soon they'll announce the winners in the radio thing?

     The gym owner, a loud-mouthed elderly man with a head as bald as an egg, greeted Tommy with, “I never was so surprised in my life as when I got your letter paying up your rent here. I never knew you could write.”

     This was greeted with much laughter by the managers, hangers-on, and the few spectators—at seventy-five cents a head. Gym humor usually ran to some clever fellow spitting buckshot around, hot foots, or rubbing somebody down with itching powder. One of the most hysterical moments in gym history had been when a fellow wired the door handle of the phone booth until it was red hot, and then the gym owner had shouted that a certain trainer was wanted on the phone. Even the trainer had laughed while his burnt hand was being bandaged.

     But now the laughter sounded lonely in the gym, for there were only a comparative few fans and pugs around. Not like the old days when fifty pugs might be working out before hundreds of fans.

     Everybody had heard of Tommy's rich manager, and a blind ex-pug peddling magazines tried to touch Tommy for a buck. Somebody else wanted to sell Tommy a “hot” ring. Tommy said it was all a lot of warmed-over air, he was still his own manager, that he had merely hit an old buddy for a hundred buck loan. But it was fine to be even a mild center of attraction—again. He put his things away in the old wooden locker and undressed. While he was working out on the bags, Alvin Hammer came in and stage-whispered out of the side of his mouth, “You learn anything, old cock?”

     “Nothing. Remember, keep mum about my new manager.”

     “Of course. I've been trying to contact Walt Steiner all morning, see what he's found out. Be careful, Tommy.”

     “Don't worry about me,” Tommy said, humoring the announcer.

     Hitting the heavy bag seemed to give him a second wind and he decided to go a few rounds. He went downstairs and sat on the long bench behind the three training rings, kidding with the other pugs. He agreed to spar two rounds with a muscular Puerto Rican lightheavy. Tommy climbed into one of the other rings and shadow-boxed a while, dancing about with five other fighters—each involved in a little ballet of his own, a snorting, macabre dance of shuffling feet on canvas.